Changing This Week in Pangoria Posts

Well, I tried it, but I think how I was tackling these posts was incorrect. Implementation of it would do better for me to come in daily, and save it as a draft until the end of the week. The last two weeks have been kind of crazy, with a lot of paperwork and responsibility required from me to get things done.

Aside from that, I have been working on a site for the sole purpose of being a single location to request work from me (link coming soon). I also put up my game for sale on windows (sale is a loose term in that you can pay what you want, including getting it for free).

I won't be doing a TWIP for the last two weeks, but I'll get started again this week, for next week's post.

Somewhere between Caitlyn and Rachel

Is race changing treated the same way as gender changing? Is it brave to come out as a black woman when you were identified as white when you were born?

I'm wondering if there is any difference in this? If not, is there any reason to deny people who feel they are actually a cat or fox or half-god/half-kitsune in their soul? Or people who identify as a cartoon character, trapped in a human body?

I've been trying to understand all the special snowflakes out there, and quite honestly, I keep swinging between very polarizing feelings and ideas when it comes to this.

Do we accept all, or do we deny all? Is there even a half measure on this, or is it all some sort of body dysmorphic disorder, similar to anorexia and bulimia? We say its dangerous to want to be too skinny, but is it dangerous to want to be a woman or a man, or black or white or an animal? All these people are trying to distort or change their bodies in some ways.

Are there less acute versions of this? Is body-piercing and tattoos a form of body dysmorphia? How much of this is influenced by culture? If we all dressed the same, would anyone recognize that they weren't a girl but really a boy?

Do we generate a scale of harm based on the effects of the dysmorphia, so that obviously fatal and damaging things like anorexia needs to be treated? But we're okay with satisfying the feelings of transgendered people and furries?

I suppose we're going to be facing this, and perhaps we go the path of accepting all, and see where it goes. Sometimes, we don't know when a line is crossed until we come to it.

Quick Movie Review of Doom: Fifty Shades of Grey

We ended up getting, "Fifty Shades of Grey". It wasn't a terrible movie, with the singular exception that it was bad. There is no "real" conflict. The black moment in the storyline drags on for what feels like an extra hour, which ruins any and all tension, and ends terribly, as if to say, you wasted your entire time watching this.

This Week in Pangoria Week of May 25th, 2015

Many things happened this past week. I lost a job, my mom's birthday and I started working on all my projects at once (due to having extra time in the mornings).

I didn't get to do FNM after Modern Masters release (which was a lot of fun), and I haven't gotten much out of my writing, but I have been working on websites and trying to get unemployment.

Overall though, not a great deal to add. I'm looking forward to Jurassic World, coming out in 9 days.

Practicing With Inkscape, Trying to Get back into drawing

This Week in Pangoria Week of May 18th, 2015

This past weekend saw me get 2nd place in a MM2015 draft, and 10th our 74 people in MM2015 sealed. At those number I kind of wish they did a top12, but hey... it was already 4am.

No progress on writing this week, but I have been making plans on the new game IP. Watched Tomorrowland as well. Overall a fun weekend, even if I ended up being sick through all of it.

This Week in Pangoria Week of May 11th, 2015

This week was pretty quiet, though I did finally pick up WoW time cards again towards the end. I have some really friendly people that play Magic at my local LGS, and I have to say that interacting with new people over the weeks has really helped my depression/funk that I was in. Had a marathon EDH game overnight on Friday, and I'm really enjoying the format. Overall, I think that the Magic community is one of the friendliest out there.

I was a bit lackluster on projects this week, and I think I've targeted the issue to not liking how I'm starting my story. So I'm thinking of resetting it, or writing out the parts I'm having issues with in less details. We'll see how things go.

I've been debating going to see Mad Max: Fury Road, on one hand EVERYONE I know is saying it's good, on the other, I've fallen asleep on previous Mad Max movies, and I'm afraid I will on this one as well. So I'll skip it and instead I was thinking of looking at some rentals of movies I missed in theaters that are coming out soon.

Quick Movie Review of Doom: Hot Pursuit

With a title that belongs in a video game, Hot Pursuit is exactly what it says on it's IMDB tin. The funniest parts were in the previews, and the enjoyment I got out of this movie, was more from going to a $6 Tuesday showing with my wife, than what the movie provided. You can skip it, and hope they do better work in the future.

Best parts were Reese as José Beiber, and the news casts of their descriptions. Everything else was unimpressive for a comedy.

This Week in Pangoria Week of May 4th, 2015

Pretty uneventful week. I came to a few realizations on my Magic deck this past FNM, and over the weekend after Friday, that I was able to understand the key weaknesses of the deck. Interestingly enough, the weakness is what made the deck fun. The key here is that it was a combo deck with an aggro goal. Which is where it suffered, because unlike normal aggro it wasn't cheap enough, and unlike a combo deck, it didn't just "go off". This means that it was easy for the top tier decks to disrupt.

Where my deck was finally in a good position for, was that it could stymie aggro decks into a game of attrition, and it had enough fuel to get past control decks... controlling. The issue is that i didn't have enough of an answer to Den Protector/Raptor resilience.

Moving on, I put a few more words to digital paper on my novel. Not as much as before, and it is something I'm redoubling my efforts on. Finally, I have been doodling out some character concepts for a new game. Pretty simple idea which I think I can execute rather well. I'm thinking of looking into animation software for it, something like Spriter.

Quick Movie Review of Doom: Avengers: Age of Ultron

This movie is very fun to watch. Super-power team up attacks are fun. Pietro making fun of people for being slow and suffering hubris is fun. Quick, little, not so secret ending that occurred early on in the credits was fun. James Spader is fun. So many times I found myself saying, "Captain America is so cool!" or "Hell yeah, no way Hawkeye would have anymore of that mess!"

I loved seeing more of Hawkeye and all these quiet moments between Bruce and Natasha. There is just so much in this movie, with a great and fun party scene in the beginning, Chekov's guns laying about all over the place. Running jokes and references. It is simply and amazingly fun to watch.

This Week In Pangoria Week of April 27th, 2015

So looks like I'm keeping up with my blogging schedule, which is nice. Big news, is that I got 8th place out of 23 players at FNM (Friday Night Magic) at my LGS (local game store). This is pretty big for me as it means I qualified for prizes.

I managed to write a couple hundred more words for my story. Still not sure what size story I'm writing, but any progress is good. Just have to stay motivated.

I got to see the Avengers 2, and I'm going to be writing up a quick review this week, so I'm looking forward to that as well.

My First Top8 FNM!

So I managed to place in 8th place this week at FNM. This is exciting after the first few weeks of me being at the bottom of the pile. Out of 23 participants as well! I just felt really good about this and decided to post. My deck is a Rakdos Dash/Control. It currently does poorly against aggro, but seems to do okay with Control and some Mid-range decks.

Quick TV Review of Doom: Gotham

Gotham is a show that if it went any more dramatic, I wouldn't watch it. It is a great alt-verse of Batman, where we see the origins of a great many villains. The thing is that Batman himself is about 20-30 years away from the Bruce Wayne we see in the show. So the focus is less on this kid developing the detective skills he'll be famous for in the future (let alone any of the other things he does), and focuses a great deal more on the Jim Gordon angle, with a focus on relatively normal, but weird crimes, while at the same time not being a procedural show.

It is drama without the drama, Batman without the Batman, and a crime show without the procedural. I'm enjoying it, but it needs to not fall off the precipice it's edging across.

This Week In Pangoria Week of April 20th, 2015

So this week I've managed to write a couple of hundred words towards a story, placed 6th place in at FNM (out of 10), and played some Heroes of the Storm. Remember to not worry so much about failing, but understand that you did and go ahead and try again. This is the kind of thing that can hurt. You think, "I meant to write more this week." Well, here is sometime and you just thought about it, so go write!

I did get one quick review out this week as well, Which occurred exactly because I remembered, hey, you should write a review of something!

This week I'm looking forward to Avengers 2! I won't make it on the day before/day of release, but I'm planning to make it by the weekend's end! There's Gotham and Flash and iZombie on tv this week, 3 shows I'm having a lot of fun with (I watch them on hulu.com and CWtv.com).

I'm planning to write more reviews and more of my story. I'm also looking into getting a modern deck going. Right now the most interesting one to me is Collect Call Elves. Honestly, such a cheap Modern deck, that looks like so much fun!

Anyways, have fun this week guys and gals!

Quick TV Review Of Doom: The Flash

So I watched the Flash last night as I was trying to fall asleep. It kept me awake! Man, there is something about the Flash that keeps me coming back to it week after week. It has a certain amount of drama and superhero that does overbear me with any one thing. Grant Gustin has a way of exuding a happiness that I've come to associate with the Flash from the comics. The character of Barry Allen was the kind of person who would have a drink with you, and talk you out of doing something just as much as he was to punch you in the face.

With all this, the Flash seems to be on point with being just the right amount of quirky for me to enjoy. Last night's episode was just a culmination of a season that just keeps hitting the topic of what it means to be a Flash tv show. It is completely worth it to watch, whether you like Flash from the Justice League cartoons, the comics, the new 52/Flash Point Paradox, or just casually as a really fast hero.

Check it out on Huluplus or CWtv.

Nothing To Talk About?

I've been at a loss on what to talk about here for a while now. I've tried starting some posts, but I honestly didn't feel I had enough to contribute in those particular cases. In an attempt to get back into blogging, and as part of my, start it when you feel like it philosophy, I decided to go ahead and post about my lack of posts.

Much like a writer, who writes about being blocked, it can have a way of unblocking the mental paths required to do work. I've been stagnating now for quite a while, and I feel the need to break myself out of my funk.

I've been doing a few different things recently, and they're all kind of working me towards getting back to work. I've had so many set backs in a row, that I lost a great deal of motivation, and being stuck in a situation where it is already difficult to set time aside to do any one thing, let alone the cornucopia of projects I have for myself. I want to get motivated again, and part of it is saying it.

Current Projects:

Unreal4 Version of Hexahedron Puzzle game
GameMaker Simple Strategy Game (for beginning concepts of mouse click unit control)
A novel (any novel, my god do I need to get back to writing again!)
Blogging

Current Pastimes:

World of Warcraft (need to get another time card, ran out)
Magic: The Gathering (a store opened up near my house, and so I'm getting back into it)
Heroes of the Storm (though honestly it feels like I'm just grinding to buy more heroes)

Blogging Plans:
Quick Movie/Series Review of Doom (this is a call back to what I used to do on my geocities page over 18 years ago)
Weekly Check In (I should establish at least one day a week where I blog about my week)
Updates (as they happen)

Well, this seems like a nice plan. Now to do it (or not, remember, missing a day is not a big deal, just make it up asap, and get back into your groove). Fatalism (the way of thinking where either you only succeed or fail with no gray area in-between) can really mess with your ability to succeed.  The key is to remember that failing to succeed in plans you make yourself is not the end of the world (unless your plan was to prevent the end of the world).